The present invention relates to audio interfaces between a telephone set and a computer.
Telephones, and telephone networks, are useful for voice communications. Also, it is generally known that computers may be connected to telephone subscriber lines by a modem. Such a connection may be useful for data and facsimile communications. However, typical known modems are not useful for processing voice and/or other audio information during a voice conversation conducted using a conventional telephone. What is needed is a telephone to computer audio interface capable of combining audio signals from the telephone with audio signals from the computer.
Accordingly, an audio interface for coupling a telephone handset and a telephone base unit to a computer is provided. The audio interface comprises a feed through circuit coupled between the telephone handset and the telephone base unit and a buffer circuit connected to the computer. The buffer circuit is coupled to the feed through circuit, in one example, by one or more transformers that perform a bidirectional conversion between balanced signals of the feed through circuit and single-ended signals of the buffer circuit. In one example, the feed through circuit comprises a microphone circuit and an earpiece circuit. In one example, the buffer circuit has an output of a first buffer connected to an audio input of the computer and an input of a second buffer connected to an audio output of the computer.